Ep. 52: Venus Williams Returns, Washington DC 500 Site Visit

Alvin Owusu (00:00.342)
And welcome to another edition of the best three podcasts I'm still Alvin that's still Tory th. It's last week of july my man. How are you feeling out there?

Torrey Hawkins (00:17.399)
What up, what up?

doing good, Alvin, I'm doing good. I had to refresh my background screen, Alvin. It's a new season, hardcore season. A lot of these events are at least on, I'll say North America, you know what I mean? And here on the state side. So happy to have the players back this side. It's funny to, been watching a little bit of the Mubadala, DC Open and City Open. And it's been, I had to research that earlier today, by the way.

Alvin Owusu (00:44.176)
Mubadala!

Torrey Hawkins (00:49.236)
I had to find out who that was and kind of apprised myself. I know you were just there. How was your trip?

Alvin Owusu (00:53.912)
Yep, the trip was good. Got two days on site. It's always refreshing for me as a tennis fan, tennis enthusiast, tennis practitioner to be amongst the people. The people being like not just the fans, the players. some time to speak with some other people who cover tennis. So that was good.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17.004)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:19.82)
Shout out to Anastasia from Groundpass, her and I keep in contact so we were to get together and talk a little bit while we were there. And I ran into Jill Krabus, yeah, Jill's, she's working, she wants to come on the pod sometime. I used to work with Jill back in the day, but it was good, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I haven't seen her in some years and I ran into her like 10 minutes after I got on site. that's like, feel like tennis tournaments are almost,

Torrey Hawkins (01:29.92)
Yo, my girl. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, same, same. When we were at UTA way, back in the day, Ms. Cravis, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:49.666)
for those who have worked in tennis and around tennis, it's almost like homecoming, like you run into people. So that's, yeah, it's super cool, it's super cool. So that was good. Also just getting to see the players kind of like up close and personal, right? And I know we'll get to the DC experience, the on-site experience a little bit later as we progress through today's conversation. But.

Torrey Hawkins (01:52.589)
Exactly, A reunion for sure.

Torrey Hawkins (02:09.122)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (02:15.182)
I was really excited too. I took a lot of feverish notes and I had to stop myself. And she's like, you know what? I'm just gonna talk to Tori about it. We're just gonna talk our way through this because the Venus Williams experience is, it's over right now. So we're recording on Friday afternoon. She lost last night to Magdalena Freck. Freck, sorry. But she,

Torrey Hawkins (02:26.998)
Hmm

Alvin Owusu (02:41.942)
And then she lost doubles the day prior, Taylor Townsend and, I forgot who's Taylor playing with, Asian woman. Anyways, yeah, so, but she did win one doubles match with Haley Baptiste and then she did win a singles match against Peyton Stearns, right? And so that's kind of, I wanna kind of start there and then kind of work our way forward. obviously, Venus gets the wild card in the tournament, right? It's widely, I mean, I think every broadcast that,

Torrey Hawkins (02:57.479)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (03:10.862)
was covering the Venus Williams in DC, was talking about her age, right? It just came over, and Venus Williams, 45 years old, hold this woman, blah, blah, blah, and that's all good and fine, right? But when I watched the match against, thank you, thank you, fantastic double-splitter drone, right? But when I watched the match against Peyton, right? So I watched that one, I was still at home.

Torrey Hawkins (03:17.168)
Right. Sure. Zhang, by the way. Shui Zhang.

Alvin Owusu (03:39.074)
I watched that one on television. was texting some friends and I'm like, I don't understand why we are in the year 2025 still pinning our hopes and our coverage and all this energy around a woman who is more or less retired from tennis, but is playing. Like I was very dismissive of the idea and a little upset with tennis, the state of tennis right now.

Torrey Hawkins (03:39.178)
Yeah, yeah, watch them.

Torrey Hawkins (04:08.778)
Mmm.

Alvin Owusu (04:09.663)
If we don't have enough personalities and enough players that we deem as stars to push forward that so far, so much that someone who's so far past her prime is essentially the face of this tournament, I'm like, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing? And then, you know, because I'm sadistic, I found I had to watch the match. I had to watch the match. Like, fine, fine. not doing anything else. I'll watch this match. And from warmups.

Torrey Hawkins (04:15.774)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (04:23.68)
garnering all that attention. Sure, sure.

Alvin Owusu (04:39.435)
I'm looking at Peyton and I'm like Peyton looks like she's been shot. Like her face was just, she was in a very weird space.

Torrey Hawkins (04:48.363)
You're playing one of the girls, one of your idols, where you grew up playing and grew up watching on TV. And maybe even for Peyton, some of her earliest tennis memories may have included Venus, obviously, and Serena. And I saw someone in the comments, and one of the things, Venus was three in the world when Peyton was born. You know what I mean? So you can imagine just the respect. And I don't want to your thunder. Keep going.

Alvin Owusu (05:15.085)
No, but I think that kind of gets to my point though, right? Yeah, so there's a good 20, 22, I Peyton's 23 years old, so a good 22 year difference there. Almost double her age, right? But to that point, let's, I mean, the tennis, let's take the tennis out of it, right? Peyton looked like she could not play tennis in that match. Like she was very, you know, arrested, if you will. And as you're watching it, it's like, Venus can barely move. Like, yeah, she can still serve. Like, I dropping bombs.

Torrey Hawkins (05:29.661)
Right. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (05:35.38)
Sure, sure, it's good work.

Alvin Owusu (05:44.213)
Right, she can, if you let her, she can still rip a forehand, like still rip a backhand when set in position, but like you.

Torrey Hawkins (05:49.599)
That backhand was all day the other night. Why Peyton was going to the backhand was my first question, but keep going. Before you get there, I do have to interject one thing. You said she can't for a, compared to a Venus Williams who was 25. I think you have to qualify that statement in that sense or to the average, if you will, top 20, if you will, WTA player today.

Alvin Owusu (05:58.563)
Please do.

Torrey Hawkins (06:19.434)
I coach 45 year old women, Alvin. I would absolutely kill to have a BSV. She looked phenomenal for 45.

Alvin Owusu (06:25.581)
Right, but that's my point. In that, it's not the point that is my point. Like, yeah, she looks great for 45, but she does not look great for a professional tennis player. Like, that's my point. There are women in qualifying who look better than her. Like, I'm like, I see her come out of the corner and I was like, yeah, I'm 42, I get it. Wait, am I 42? I am 42, yeah, I understand. And I'm not.

Torrey Hawkins (06:38.646)
Right. I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (06:48.2)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (06:52.205)
Six foot tall, right? So I can move with the best of them for my age, right? Getting out of the corners is a sticky situation. I'm not playing against Peyton Sterns. So I get you and that's also my point, right? Under normal circumstances, and I caveat that with saying normal circumstances and what I'll get to why I consider these very abnormal circumstances in a moment. Under normal circumstances, Peyton should dog walk Venus Williams, dog walk.

Torrey Hawkins (06:57.053)
Right. It is. It is.

Alvin Owusu (07:22.701)
She did not, she couldn't even walk herself. So that was on, I don't remember what night that was, but fast forward, maybe the next day, think that was Monday. Okay, so two days, maybe a day later, two days later, I was on site and the Venus Williams experience in person, in Washington, D.C., like chocolate city, it is, I was like, oh, now I see why Peyton couldn't move.

Torrey Hawkins (07:25.725)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (07:30.281)
It was Monday. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (07:41.967)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (07:45.884)
Yeah. Sorry, Tuesday night. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (07:51.041)
It was Tuesday, okay, so the very next day I was there and I saw part of the doubles match that they ended up losing. But I was like, now I get it. The crowd's there. It's like Atlanta, but it's a very black city. And black tennis, Arthur Ashe helped build that facility. Howard University's right down the street.

Torrey Hawkins (08:07.494)
But right, Very pro black. Yep.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep, the bison.

Alvin Owusu (08:20.382)
Exactly. I went right past the campus on my way up to the park on Thursday morning. So it's it's different and it felt different in the crowds. The crowds for women's doubles match on the second court were insane. Like the line to get in on the match prior was insane. mean, it's it. And then when you you put it together, I go, OK, yeah, she didn't really have a chance. mean, I can imagine as an American, a young American.

Torrey Hawkins (08:27.996)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (08:38.204)
Yeah, right.

Torrey Hawkins (08:45.628)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:49.352)
You would never dream that you would be not a crowd favorite in a tournament on American soil.

Torrey Hawkins (08:54.463)
Right. But you're playing another American who just happens to be Venus Williams in her seven, was it seven? I think she won seven Grand Slams back in her day. Alvin, I know what you're saying. My take was very different and very.

It's a tangent. When 45 years old can still hang, it shows you how good 45 was 20 years ago. We're seeing this same conversation with Novak now. He is not as fast as was back then. We all know that. You've asked the question, you've posited, why is he still playing? Why didn't he just retire? I would hate to see him go out like I saw you mentioned the

Alvin Owusu (09:19.692)
What do mean?

Torrey Hawkins (09:47.176)
The Hubie Hurcats match with Fed and so on and so on. I've heard that from you a time or two. I made the comment about Pete leaving at an 02 when he was done, right? When he won his last one and kind of teased. He might come back only till a year later. No one's seen, seen, no heard of Pete. He's, oh, by the way, I'm retired. Which I thought was a very smart move. I saw the 02 match and he almost got beat by Rusetsky in the round of 16. Could have been quarters, but.

Alvin Owusu (09:49.398)
Buh-huh.

Alvin Owusu (09:58.957)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (10:05.708)
Yep.

Alvin Owusu (10:16.158)
Right, yeah, that's a whole nother episode on its own right there.

Torrey Hawkins (10:17.254)
But and snuck snuck out of that one the whole another talks right. But I say it to say Venus to me. And that match the other day showed why she's still relevant with her level, not the tournament, not for tennis, but she gave us a throwback performance of what she was an album of anybody. Not just both of us being black people, black tennis fans.

obviously appreciative of everything that the Williams sisters in particular, Venus, who was first, have given us and the platform they've given us. What I would tell you is it was just good to see her not only win, but also to be reminded of how good she was then and how just to say, you know what? I know I'm 45, but I just want to my toe in the water just to kind of see what it was like again. And I'll be honest, I felt bad for Peyton because

I don't think Peyton, I think Peyton was expecting a 45 year old. I don't think she was expecting a former Grand Slam champ who just happens to be 45. No, not unlike Novak, you know, when he's played some of the matches against some of these outside of the top 10 types. Novak can look pretty clean, Alvin. He can look pretty Novak-ish a lot. And then he plays against, you know, center as he's done the last couple of tournaments. And then he looks a little more

Alvin Owusu (11:38.366)
Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (11:43.943)
Aged but make no mistake with most people outside of the top five let alone top ten No back safe for that little spurt he had early in the year where he was kind of went had a little bit of a Had kind of had had a little bump in the road, but Alvin that's my point Don't think that he still can't play tennis and that was my tangent was we should almost put former slam champions in their own UTR because you can't base it off UTR

Alvin Owusu (11:54.346)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (12:13.762)
off past matches. It's a level. It's in a rating, but it's not a rating based off of competition in the last 20 because they may have played. Venus probably hadn't played a match. What was it? 18 months, two years? What was it? Right. So.

Alvin Owusu (12:21.204)
Right.

Right, yeah, it's been almost a year and a half since she's played a match, but I think the thing to consider is the difference in age between, it's not really about, I I say it's not about Venus, even though it's about Venus, and it's not about her age, but it is about her, when we look at the comparison between Novak and Venus, Yeah, think Novak's 38. There's a big difference between 38 and, what is she, 44, what she is, or 45, right? So, even, it's, mean, she heard last,

Torrey Hawkins (12:48.262)
45. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:53.228)
The last time she made a run at a Grand Slam was like 2017. And I think she lost her sister in the final of the Australian Open. I mean, at that point.

Torrey Hawkins (13:00.839)
But, but, to your point and that's seven years older than our current 24 slam champ on the men's side. I'm just saying it makes it makes it that much more relevant. I'm just telling you Alvin and my only point about the tangent was we almost have to put that level of player in their own special cryogenically frozen UTR. Look, I can't play a tournament that way anymore.

I'm not a threat. I'm gonna be a threat to win the next match. She'll probably feel that match for two more days if she's like the rest of us, right?

Alvin Owusu (13:35.596)
Yeah, that's what saying. When she, you know, against Magdalena, it's like, okay, she's a top seed in this tournament. She has like the seventh seed. But now Venus has three matches on the body. It's like, that's gonna be tough. That's gonna be tough.

Torrey Hawkins (13:47.46)
Right. And so smart for Freck to come out there and drop shot and run and move. And buddy, she was not gonna get into a power struggle with Venus. And how smart, she was up all night like Peyton. Thank you. Because you, I was thinking about that, but you just showed me not to do that. You know what I mean? And let me get back to old school. Let me run the 45 year old game style and lob and do everything I can because

Alvin Owusu (14:01.493)
Mm-mm.

Alvin Owusu (14:09.929)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (14:17.102)
And being a still had a handful of winners on it. So, Alvin, I'll give you a quick little backstory. I'm at the open with Sco back in what, 05, 04, well it was 04 through 07, eight or so. John McEnroe, right? Who has many years at past his prime. John's what darn near, he's gotta be mid 60s, give or take now. He, so this was 20 years ago. So he's, know, my age likely between me and your age now he was 20 years ago, right?

Skoll's playing him in a set, right? Skoll looks over at me. know, John's coming out from the booth. No one's out there. It's a nighttime match. We just kind of watching somebody playing. And there was some other people playing. We were like, okay, we've already seen it. Let's get a quick hit in. He's like, T, I want to hit. I let's hit some balls. Out of nowhere, John Mackerel comes on the outside of Billy Jane Kane's, comes out and hey, can kind of hit a few balls? And I'm looking over like, of course. You know, is that even a question, right?

Alvin Owusu (15:11.325)
Am I getting punked? Am I getting punked?

Torrey Hawkins (15:16.527)
They hit some balls and macro is kind of loosening up, stretching, know, hitting the old forehand, bringing out the, and hitting the ball, Alvin, I tell you, and Sco will appreciate this when we get him back on the pod, hitting the ball pretty clean. Bigger than you thought, because I watched macro growing up myself and he's, I'm like, wow, Mac hits the ball still, hits the ball pretty well.

Standard pro tennis player. Hey, you want to play a set, right? Sco looks over at me like, this guy, like, like this is old man. I'll kill this guy. And I'm like, and I've said something to Sco into my breath, like Sco, John won eight grand slams. Brother's pretty good. I said, don't sleep. I said, don't sleep. I said, and if you win the first couple of games, I said, be ready for me to make an adjustment. And I said, I'm just telling you now. I said, he's going to surprise you.

Alvin Owusu (15:54.666)
right.

Alvin Owusu (16:06.185)
He can't win this tournament, but he'll bust your ass tonight.

Torrey Hawkins (16:06.54)
Sco came Adam Strong, had a couple aces first, and you can tell John was just kind of calibrating. Sco ended up taking them out. But when I tell you, had it gone two sets, now mind you, John would have needed a trainer at the end of the two sets, but it would have gotten that much closer. I want to say it may have been six-three. Had it have gone, had it have, and the last three games, Alvin, were very fiercely contested. And Sco looked at me like, man.

I said, let's number one in the world, bro. I go, he knows how to play the game. He may not be as fast. He may not be as young and as fit. I said, but don't think he don't know where to put it. Doesn't know the adjustments to make. And we were both laughing on the way back to the hotel. Like he was incredulous. I was like, I expected him to do that to you sooner. That just shows a little bit of age and he's probably, he was probably wasn't warmed up, right? Using your match to get ready for his masters doubles match tomorrow, right?

Alvin Owusu (16:40.063)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (17:04.221)
Right, exactly, exactly.

Torrey Hawkins (17:05.686)
I said to say, so sure enough, Dobbs sends me Dobbs, boy was playing the French Open, the junior French. And sure enough, who comes over to get a quick hit in? Mackenroe, right? And so I'm laughing, right? I'm laughing.

Alvin Owusu (17:15.435)
I imagine Mac running around with it's like $100 bills in his pocket like just trying to hustle juniors like, hey, let's put a little something on it. Let's put some money on it.

Torrey Hawkins (17:22.949)
Oh, dude, just hustling. You want to play a set? to put some money on it? Oh, 100%. 100%. And so I'm laughing at the fact that he's still doing the same thing, of hanging around the courts, checking out some players and whatnot. Anyway, I say it all to say that was my experience 20 years ago. And so I tell you that to tell you, so to see a 45-year-old former number one and top player, you know, to come out there for a match, for one match.

I almost expected that to be, I hope it did have gone three for Peyton's sake, but I almost expected Venus to win that match and to let's face it bow out gracefully the next day due to age and due to recovery. But I'm just saying Alvin, now if they were 30 in the world, maybe not so much. Top 100 in the world back in the day, still very solid. Whoop anybody at the club, period. But at the pro level, but you put a former number one at a, what's DC, a 500 at a 500? Come on.

Alvin Owusu (17:54.749)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:18.955)
500 year. Well, you could see also the point about being, I think one of the differences in being former number one and former multiple time Grand Slam champion is you could see her kind of quickly get into that zone. Like, Veena's got into this zone, and they show the close-ups on her face, she's locked in. There's nothing here that can phase her. She's been in much bigger scenarios, especially the back end of the second set where she was trying to close it out.

Torrey Hawkins (18:20.673)
Alvin, I'm...

Torrey Hawkins (18:29.473)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (18:34.689)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (18:40.035)
Yeah.

Right. Late, late second. Yeah, I'll go with that. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (18:48.617)
and had lots of chances and couldn't get it on, think, I can't remember what the score was at this time, but I think she had a couple, late second, yeah, she had a couple, maybe a couple match points, but on Peyton's serve and wasn't able to get them, but she never looked flustered. She's like, I've done this, this is fine, everything's fine. I barely even feel the crowd, they're here, but whatever, I've done this in Arthur.

Torrey Hawkins (19:02.593)
Yep. Sure. Or maybe better said, I'm so much more comfortable in the crowd than you are, Peyton. This is my crowd.

Alvin Owusu (19:15.185)
in the crowd. this is a big like, Peyton has recently played in some big tournaments. And you know, she's she's a 30 something in the world touring professional, but she's never played in the last week of a Grand Slam. She's never been in a in a stadium like this in a match that matters like.

Torrey Hawkins (19:20.451)
Bye.

Torrey Hawkins (19:23.916)
Yeah! Yeah!

Torrey Hawkins (19:29.665)
Right. And perhaps has been the underdog for a lot of that and had the crowd support as the underdog with the upset. Now she's in a sense the seed and who is she playing a crowd favorite, especially to your point for DC. So I thought it was a tough situation. thought Freck did a great job just because she's not, what is Freck, Polish? Just because she's not from here. And a lot of it didn't faze her. You know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (19:47.645)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (19:55.883)
Right. Right. Exactly. And I, and then I see, I see Peyton, uh, I this would have been yesterday out of the practice courts. Like she got, saw her earlier in the day and this afternoon got two different workouts in and it's like, just getting, that work in. Like that's, that's what you gotta do. You get right back to the drawing board and she looked fine. Like she said the ball well, moving well. Like seems like we just caught a, we just caught a blip. It was bad. That's a tough one. Caught a blip. Caught a blip. Um, but yeah, the, the, the Venus experience was fun.

Torrey Hawkins (20:10.838)
Yeah. Get right back on the horse. 100%. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (20:18.612)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (20:24.506)
She's going to be playing and I think I just saw she got the wild card into Cincinnati So she's gonna be in Cincinnati a little later in a couple weeks before the Yeah, and then this is like this is what's like this I you can see what's happening right like you see the machine happening like she's hitting and She's in she's playing in tournament. She's getting wild cards. She's enjoying playing. That's fine You see this marching towards the the US Open I assume she's gonna get a wild card the US Open I assume she's gonna play and then maybe she gets her grand sendoff there like

Torrey Hawkins (20:31.481)
Messing up somebody else's draw, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (20:53.162)
because she has never officially retired, right? So she's just, yeah, but she's not gonna just disappear.

Torrey Hawkins (20:54.977)
That's a point. But you don't think a lot of this, and I'll come back for my tangent on the tennis part portion, which I wholeheartedly stand by. You don't think this is still part of the whole selling tickets situation. This is not part of the whole, you you got Alcara's and Ryder Kondo playing mixed, know, you Platy at the open. You don't think this is part of a little bit of a media blitz. I mean, seriously.

Alvin Owusu (21:15.626)
No, no, no, events are, mean, DC got lucky. It seems like they're selling tickets anyways. They're fine, probably fine. Cincinnati is fine. They just went through this major expansion. This is their unveiling year. There's a documentary out about how they almost lost the event to Charlotte in the last two years and were able to re-secure it and now they're investing more into the facility.

Torrey Hawkins (21:38.869)
Mmm.

Torrey Hawkins (21:44.108)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (21:45.035)
I'll drop a link in the description if I can find it or remember that I said that. I think, to my point, I don't think it's a tickets thing. In the US Open, just feel like it's a work. There was a line, but all these people already had tickets. They're already there. Those are grounds passes. That's an empty, it's a first come first serve situation. But for the doubles anyways, for the singles, that thing was packed out and you needed, the tickets got expensive. Luckily I got mine early.

Torrey Hawkins (21:54.946)
There was a line, you said it yourself, I'm just saying. Fair enough.

Torrey Hawkins (22:11.042)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (22:14.401)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (22:14.698)
I just feel like we're moving towards a good sendoff for her. Very similar to what we saw with Serena. Except for even, forget, Serena played no warmup events leading up to the US Open before she retired. She just played the Open and got to the third round, beat the two seed. if she, this is off topic, but if she had done what Venus is doing now, like got serious, played a couple warmup events and then went and played.

Torrey Hawkins (22:26.306)
Just play the open. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:44.417)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (22:44.706)
I mean, she's definitely beating, she lost to Australian girl in the third round. And then she just looked a little rusty, looked a little tired. But I feel like, I led Tom Yon about just how she lost to But she beat Annette Contevate in the first round, second round. Annette was two of the world. What the hell? So I feel like we're moving towards that. Also with the Venus returning, they've also been showing that.

Torrey Hawkins (22:53.599)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (22:57.517)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:02.113)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:13.692)
Serena has been training and she's hitting and she's lost a bunch of weight and she looks great and she's out hit and it's like, are they playing doubles in the U S open? Probably, probably, probably.

Torrey Hawkins (23:21.263)
That would be fun to see. That would be fun to see. I would, I would go, I'm going to New York and three weeks I would go back to New York to watch them. You know what mean? Just watch them play Dove. That just for old times sake. know what I mean? And that's my whole point. I'm not saying it's a bad thing for the media, but I'm saying at some point you said it best, Alvin.

Alvin Owusu (23:33.182)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (23:41.812)
tennis needs to be these big tournaments need to be more like tennis festivals, right? And who would you want to see more playing women's doubles than for old time sake, Venus and Serena, you know what mean? Lacing it up once again. I personally think that'd be a great match to watch and be a part of.

Alvin Owusu (24:01.257)
And they mean so much. So if you look at, okay, so Venus is 45 and Serena is 43, I'm 42. So as far as like my, when I was coming of age as a tennis player, like when I was in juniors, they were kind of, I they weren't actively playing in juniors, but they were about the same age. like my, I never really like idolized them. They did not get me into tennis. That is for the generation behind me, right?

Torrey Hawkins (24:09.855)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (24:28.65)
Behind you, right?

Alvin Owusu (24:29.895)
So like their impact on that on set generation is kind of, it's always kind of lost on me. I always just appreciated them as tennis players, right? I didn't see them as like barrier breakers because I was there at the exact same time. So it, you know, a little different story. But then like, I remember telling someone, like when I was a kid coming up in junior tennis in Georgia, like there weren't many black girls. They're like a handful. But then when I came back coaching 10 years later, so they're everywhere. They're everywhere.

Torrey Hawkins (24:38.59)
Right. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (24:53.815)
Sure. They're everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (24:59.515)
So like that is the, I could see the impact, right? That was not by mistake, I see the impact that they had and then got to see them as professionals and just appreciated them as outstanding tennis players. So, but now coming back to it, like in seeing them as, you know, we're all adults now and seeing how people like the reverence that people older than myself have for them who were adults when they both hit the scene, right? And then also the players.

Torrey Hawkins (25:02.644)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (25:17.458)
Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (25:27.977)
Like even Naomi said, Venus is like, it's like Mama Queen Venus. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. You're 15, almost 20 years younger than her. So yeah, I get it. So yeah, that impact is real for whatever it is, however long it is. Let's just, it.

Torrey Hawkins (25:31.422)
The Queen.

Torrey Hawkins (25:39.04)
Sure. Yeah, we're long at last. It's just to be enjoyed, it's to be appreciated. And hey, and the grands came with things, we're all little dust in the wind, aren't we? And so for this little moment, for that dust to be a little bit more pertinent and a little bit more, I'm gonna say more substantial right now.

Alvin Owusu (25:57.063)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (26:04.724)
Buddy, I'm all for it and I thought it was great. I thought it was good for tennis, I really was. I hated to be Peyton that night, but at the same time, it was good for tennis to see. And I'll tell you one more thing, it was good for Alvin. It was good to see her looking good. Had she had gone out there and looked horrible, right, we'd have a very different podcast, we? What the heck was she thinking? You know what saying? I mean, Alvin, she was in that forehand about as clean as she's ever had it. I mean, she was hitting the forehand about as clean as always in the backhand.

Alvin Owusu (26:24.969)
Yeah, we might not talking about it.

Torrey Hawkins (26:34.407)
Serve was clean, looked comfortable. I just felt like, I mean, her hair was looking good. She was looking good. mean, she just, and she looked happy. And I have to tell you for that, for her, was very happy. For her, the space she's in recently engaged, I just felt like she was, things are, for as much as she's given to the game, it was good to see her have a moment like that.

Alvin Owusu (26:46.739)
Yeah... Yeah...

Alvin Owusu (27:00.647)
Yeah. And like, you know, to the point of like looking good, hitting the ball well, you know, I ventured out to the practice courts a good bet. spent a good amount of time in the practice courts when I was in DC. it's kind of a thing and she was like going through her process and like, it just looked like a player, but like very unbothered by all the things around. And you gotta think like when they were, when her, when she was one in the world and winning grand slams and filing grand slams.

Torrey Hawkins (27:23.903)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (27:30.247)
Like she's been around a lot more hoopla than this. This is like, this is like, this is cute to her. We're in we're in a, we're in a park here. We're in a park here in D.C. Northern, Northern D.C. And there's, yeah, this is the cute little stadium you got here. And this is nice, but so it was just, it was just about the tennis.

Torrey Hawkins (27:32.952)
Right.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Even her little even her little famous wave and her little her little her way with a little her little turn her little turn that she does her little ballerina ice skating turn she does. It was that that her patented move right. It was just so good to see all of it.

Alvin Owusu (27:53.319)
The way it was done.

Alvin Owusu (28:00.146)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (28:04.959)
you know, was brought it all back. She, you know.

Alvin Owusu (28:07.719)
Yeah, kind of my last point on her is like to that, to that exact point there, like the, everyone was caught up in the Venus Williams rapture and her press conferences were, you know, obviously she's extremely well-spoken. they were, she had eloquent thoughts and had like reporters eating out of the palm of her hand and all this stuff. just, it made me think, and I talked to others about it while I was there. It's like,

Torrey Hawkins (28:29.118)
Sure.

Alvin Owusu (28:37.193)
It just kind of shows you the gap in personalities between like this woman who was a full on complete person at this point in her life versus some of these, I guess, relatively children who were expecting to be introspective and be interesting and be comfortable enough in their skin and their position as tennis players. It's almost not fair. The point was like,

Torrey Hawkins (28:40.03)
Mmm. Mmm.

Torrey Hawkins (28:47.038)
100 % 100 %

Torrey Hawkins (28:52.45)
Yeah.

Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (29:00.24)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:05.509)
man, we really need some more characters on tour, but like it does take a certain amount of perspective in life to be at work and be a character at the same time. Like let your character show through.

Torrey Hawkins (29:11.545)
and

Torrey Hawkins (29:15.422)
Yeah. I, on that thought, I know you may taper after this, Venus was always very well spoken, very, very articulate, perhaps even more so than Serena. You always felt like Serena was a little more, I'm gonna say real for lack of a better word, and very understanding of the moment Serena.

Alvin Owusu (29:26.238)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (29:36.144)
Hehehehe

Torrey Hawkins (29:42.257)
but I always felt that Venus was very, very, not that Serena wasn't, but Venus was just a little better at it. The point I'm making is, and we may disagree on this one, I don't know.

That's what you miss when some of the greats leave. You miss their perspective. You miss their otherworldly sense of the moment, everything around it. I was watching a recent little Instagram with about Andre and when he was number one in the world and how his own success and failure just the other day and how he was, wasn't happy, right? And he, his mindset was as he goes on to say in that little minute.

whatever, 30 second video. But you could see in that, in the pictures were very, very well attuned to his arise and his, and then his fall, right. And then his rise again, right. But Agassi and you've heard him commentate as I have Alvin and matches since then about how, just how well spoken and how we're watching the ball being hit by the racket. He's watching the person in the moment and how they're handling.

Alvin Owusu (30:36.392)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (30:56.399)
And I just say it to say the perspective is just different. When I coach a kid right now, after almost 30 years of coaching, it's not that ball he missed. He missed that ball three shots ago. I know it. He doesn't, he won't have a clue for another year that I was right. I've seen that already so many times. He didn't see the first short ball. His next two balls were a little bit short in the court.

The kid's next ball was inevitably deeper. He's trying to come in on the ball. He should have came in two balls ago. You know this as well as I do, right? The kid comes in and gets past easily if he makes the approach at all. I saw it. I almost turned away and says, yep, you'll miss the next approach shot because you're to come on the ball that you should have come in two balls ago. What am I looking at? I'm looking at all of it. He sees that ball. Agassi sees that at the pro level.

Alvin Owusu (31:31.345)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (31:51.494)
Yeah, it-

Torrey Hawkins (31:55.665)
Right? What I'm seeing on the court, on court three on a random Tuesday, he says, it's just Thursday to me, but yeah, I saw the same thing for so and so and so and so. So now imagine that perspective is now in front of the microphone. I have, and could somebody really fill those shoes having lived such a relatively shorter period of time, let alone lived on the tour for that lame family and didn't have those experiences. So I'm just saying,

Alvin Owusu (32:22.664)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (32:25.413)
Those are the things you miss when the torchbearers leave.

Alvin Owusu (32:27.878)
Well, I agree with you to your point, but I think it's even less, it's that thing where you hit your prime when your physical abilities, when your mental capabilities meet your physical abilities at some apex and then you wanna zoom in and elongate that period of time for as long as possible, right?

Torrey Hawkins (32:43.225)
OK. Yeah.

Sure, sure, right. And decelerate as slow as possible.

Alvin Owusu (32:50.472)
Do you want to yeah while the mental mental abilities to read the game continue to increase you want to slow down the decrease of your physical capabilities Yes, like I mean Tom Brady was able to do it for a while LeBron James has been able to do it like this is what the greats Novak is able to do it like that they're fighting against Their physical disadvantage because they have such a greater mental advantage, right? And that not only comes across like while they're playing the game, but also where the game fits in their life

Torrey Hawkins (32:56.036)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (33:14.341)
Yeah, I agree.

Alvin Owusu (33:19.816)
and how they're able to view the game from like, when you're 25, you're in, I don't care what your job is, you're just in it. You're a young adult trying to figure it out, right? And if your job happens to be a professional tennis player and you're pretty good at it, that's gonna, you you are already the sun in your own universe to begin with as a professional tennis player, right? Everything revolves around you. And then that universe just keeps bopping from, very much so, very much so.

Torrey Hawkins (33:29.306)
Yeah. Sure, sure, It's around you, Heliocentric, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (33:49.308)
Basketball stole the term. We've been doing it in tennis for a long time. then now you add, you're just bouncing around the world playing tennis, right? And then it never stops. It's 11 months out of the year. You're just moving, moving, moving, moving. So the expectation or the want from us on the outside for these players to have that perspective, it's impossible. They can't do it. You're just too young. You're just too young. It can't happen until you've seen it enough times to where you're not worried about the

Torrey Hawkins (34:11.408)
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. See ya. Right.

Alvin Owusu (34:19.388)
the minutia of the thing and you can zoom out and look at the macro of it all. And that's where Venus is in life right now. That's where anyone past the age of 30, 35 probably is in life. But to your point about the greats, we don't have them. It's like, well, we can't have them. They can't play tennis anymore at a high level. They can't stay high enough ranked to stay around long enough for us to be able to have this outside of these one-off wild card situations.

Torrey Hawkins (34:20.759)
Right. Yep. All big time.

Torrey Hawkins (34:34.952)
Yeah. Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (34:47.867)
I think what I'm getting at is though is that we miss them and whether they're in the booth, whether they're coaching someone else who's now younger and doing their thing. I would love to hear from her more often. I would love to hear from Andre more often. I would love to hear. I've read a few articles recently from Tim Henman. I think when Novak gets done, I would love to hear more from Novak, Andy Murray.

Alvin Owusu (34:51.754)
sure.

Torrey Hawkins (35:14.586)
because they are still so relevant and because of that otherworldly, that almost surreal understanding of it all. And that's, there's no disrespect on, you know, on some of the others who I perhaps don't like to listen to so much in the booth, but I say it to say, I would love to hear more of them. And Venus just reminded me how much that I personally have missed her and her time on court just continue to make her comments more relevant.

Right? She still knows what she knows. Is she able to do it anymore? That's not her fault being 45. It's the fact that she still has all of that wherewithal to share with the world to me is a travesty not to be able to hear from her. Should that be her wish, right? To share it with us. But I just feel like, know, Tennis Channel and other people, we've got some great people in the booth. Some young ones, Love, they got, you know, they got my girl Coco in there, Van DeWay. They got Sam, they got you, Banks, they got, you know,

My main man, Nick Monroe, but they could have a, we're gonna call it a coach's corner, championship edition, you know what I mean? For the Venuses, for that level of player, for the Andres, to really give us some true insights of what's going on there. And so people that are very articulate, very well, not just well spoken on how they present, but.

Alvin Owusu (36:18.341)
Nick Monroe, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (36:43.215)
who've been there and done it can help us, mortals understand it from their perspective. So that's my.

Alvin Owusu (36:44.901)
Right, yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's kind of the kicker you touched on. I think you were alluding to McEnroe. But the great ones need to stay close to the game, at the ground level, to really have a fresh, to marry what they already know to what's happening right now. And I think that's the special sauce. To that point, Sally Jenkins had an article out in the Washington Post a couple weeks ago.

Torrey Hawkins (37:03.183)
percent.

Torrey Hawkins (37:14.67)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (37:16.173)
and kind of just really putting down the McEnroe brothers and their commentary. I saw it on Instagram and shared it on the best of three account and boy, let me tell you, I mean, we're not, this is not a social media driven exploration here that we're doing. We are on social media because we have to be on social media, but the crux of what we do around here is,

Torrey Hawkins (37:28.292)
Blew up, huh? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (37:35.127)
Ha

Alvin Owusu (37:44.42)
is this podcast, that's what we're here for. But let me tell you, we got a lot of new followers and a lot of views and the comments section, it's really a glimpse into the tennis fans view on how they like to watch tennis and what it comes down to, I believe, is there are casual fans who...

watch tennis during the Grand Slams and they're only watching the big matches that are on ESPN. And so like they're cool with it. Like they like they like John McEnroe. They knew him from when he was a player and know him as a broadcaster. And they don't really care how he pronounces, you know, Kabali because because they don't know how to pronounce it here. They don't know who this guy is. But they so that it works for them. But then there are the people who are the diehards. And I would imagine the people who listen to this podcast probably want a little bit more.

Torrey Hawkins (38:30.497)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (38:40.263)
want something a little bit different. it's been really, really interesting just to kind of see people and their thoughts about the subject, because we talk about it here a little bit every once in a while, but now that it's out in the public and we are kind of swept up in that conversation, it's been eye-opening for me. Let's do this. Let's take a little break, and then we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about OnSite in DC.

Torrey Hawkins (38:47.981)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (38:55.351)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (39:03.641)
Yeah, yeah, I'm dying to hear some of your experiences and who impressed you, you know, because that when you see it in person, it's different.

Alvin Owusu (39:08.347)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. All right, we'll be right back.

Alvin Owusu (39:15.843)
And we're back. All right, so in the first half of the podcast, we talked about the Venus Williams experience and how that's going and how that felt whilst in DC and on TV and the whole deal. So whilst, yeah, never a bad moment to use whilst. So yeah, that was in part one. So now we're here. Wanna talk about, I was on site for two days. Let me tell you. The things that I saw. So my experience at a...

Torrey Hawkins (39:27.405)
Piles. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (39:44.493)
at a professional tennis event is very, I wanna say it's probably atypical from someone who would buy a ticket and go to the event, right? You know, buy a ticket, sometimes you get a grounds pass, sometimes you get a ticket to the stadium, which also comes with a grounds pass effectively. But there's a lot happening on site, right? You walk in, there's a merchandise shop, right? There's, the stringers are there, like stringing up all the rackets. You've got show courts, you've got stadium court.

Torrey Hawkins (40:07.66)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:14.074)
You've got, you there's the fan zone, like there's bars and DJs, and then there's the food area, and then there's practice courts, and that's kind of like what you got there. But every, I mean, you're watching tennis on TV, right? You only see the courts. And, you know, Washington, D.C. can look like Cabo, can look like Kitzball, right? Can look like whatever. They're all, they all kind of look the same.

Torrey Hawkins (40:25.484)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (40:35.128)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (40:40.174)
It's the court with the location at the bottom. So you know where you are, right? but when you're there, tennis, tennis facilities are all unique and ones that have stadiums that are big enough to hold an ATP or WTA event are also unique in their own right. So Rock Creek park, Rock Creek tennis center in Rock Creek park, right. is north of downtown DC.

Torrey Hawkins (40:43.018)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (40:54.476)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:00.694)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (41:07.231)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (41:09.77)
about a 30 minute, 30 minute Uber ride for me from, know, from, let's say Naval yard where I was staying all the way up to rock Creek. And it's a, it's just a tennis center in a big park. Right. And so you get there and you have these, you have these bleachers set up, but like, you can see that the bleachers are also like on a court. So it's like, you have, I have three courts in a row side by side, but like there's bleachers on the court in the middle.

Torrey Hawkins (41:16.682)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (41:22.839)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (41:33.429)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (41:39.131)
two-sided beaters to create show courts for courts one and what be one and three, right? So that is like, if you go to the US Open, you see the courts, you see what it's set up like, but like, that's not normal. Normal tournaments have one or two courts, sometimes three or four, but like, they're not stadiums for professional tennis events all the time. One time at one week, two weeks out of the year. This one, yeah, it's like that. Like, so they make,

Torrey Hawkins (41:43.095)
That's it.

Torrey Hawkins (41:50.071)
100%.

Torrey Hawkins (42:05.097)
It's like, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (42:08.59)
like some of these courts, make stadium courts out of them. But it's always cool. It feels like this one was a lot like Charleston and that felt like a tennis center you've been at a million times. Just it had a stadium court. It felt like being at our old Sun Mountain Tennis Center that we had built for the Olympics. like.

Torrey Hawkins (42:11.927)
Yep. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Right. I was gonna say that there's a there's a Randall Stadium right there and then bunch of courts and then for that for that for the Olympics, it looked like it was a tennis center, you know.

Alvin Owusu (42:37.304)
Right, yeah, that's cool. So on site, right? So I like to get out and go to the practice courts, get out there and see the players really going through the work. Because I was explaining to someone,

We have these players who are the best in the world at what they do, right? But tennis is very unique in that you can get right next to them. Like Taylor Fritz is the fourth best male tennis player on the planet. I was standing right next to him at one point. Right next to him, right? And it was so different than when I was standing right next to him at Orange Bowl some years ago. At that point he was just a kid, like one of the kids, but now he's still...

Torrey Hawkins (43:08.982)
And you're right there. Yeah, and he's right there. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:22.244)
Taylor fritz but now he's he's pretty good at his job.

Torrey Hawkins (43:24.443)
Number four, five in the world, Fritz. Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:27.278)
Right, exactly. Let's put it comparison, right? Like think Jason Tatum was like fourth in the NBA MVP voting this year, right? You can never get that close to Jason Tatum. Never, never, never.

Torrey Hawkins (43:37.046)
Not to not have some legal action and a few cops chasing you. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (43:41.543)
Exactly, can't watch him go to practice. If you go see him play basketball, you're paying a lot of money for it, and the price tag goes up the closer you get to the court. And sometimes professional basketball players, they don't always bring it, bring it. There's a difference between the first quarter of regular season game and the fourth quarter of regular season game. There's a difference between a game and...

Torrey Hawkins (43:54.934)
Sure. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (44:02.996)
Yeah. Break the season of playoffs. Yeah. Or before and after All-Star break and so on and so on. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (44:09.144)
January versus a game in April or May, right? Exactly, the intensity does lift as the stakes become higher. But in tennis, tennis players would play well all the time if they could. So when you're seeing them, there's never an instance, very seldom is there an instance where they're not trying as hard as they can to play the best tennis that they possibly can.

Torrey Hawkins (44:18.976)
Yep. Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (44:35.382)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (44:38.406)
take that as my baseline, right? Understanding this when I go into it, right? So if I go see Ben Shelton at the US Open, actually, Ben Shelton at the Australian Open, because I've seen him at the Australian Open, right? And I see I'm upper bowl, right? Eh, wasn't that far up, I was in pretty decent seats. But Ben Shelton trying at the Australian Open is the same as Ben Shelton trying in DC, is the same as Ben Shelton trying in Atlanta, right? It's the same.

Torrey Hawkins (44:41.17)
Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (44:49.02)
Hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (44:52.918)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (45:00.982)
Yeah, at the old Atlanta open,

Alvin Owusu (45:08.478)
Yeah, he's doing the same thing. He's the same person doing the same thing, which is trying to play top level tennis and win this tennis match. So here is my crescendo here. Go to the smaller tournaments because you can get right there. Just plan a little bit in advance. Maybe get there the match before as opposed to right there for the start of that match. But...

Torrey Hawkins (45:29.514)
Got it.

Torrey Hawkins (45:34.848)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (45:36.698)
You can get so close and when you get that close, you can see and hear what they're going through. sat behind Elena Rabacca in his box when she played Victoria Mboko and just hearing the conversations, not really the conversations, more one-way traffic for the coach to Elena. It's like you learn so much about them as people. Elena Rabacca, they say she doesn't show any emotion, dude.

Torrey Hawkins (45:57.076)
Huh.

Torrey Hawkins (46:01.706)
Yeah. Wow. That was it. That was your outburst emotionally. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:07.289)
None. Those eyes are dead. She is like, it was, I saw her at one, I was talking to the guy that I was sitting next to and it like, man, she really doesn't like, no highs, no lows. Like at one point she went.

But that was it, that was it. I think she won the match. That was it, that was it. Yet her coaches were chirping the whole match. I mean, every time she came back, every point, they're chirping, chirping, chirping. I'm like, man, they're talking a lot. They're not saying anything of value. They're just chirping, just chirping. And she's just even keeled the entire way. Yeah, and then to juxtapose that, I was sitting behind Cam Norrie's box. And when I say behind the box,

Torrey Hawkins (46:42.313)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:51.461)
It's not like the box at Wimbledon where it's like you can see this section off for like 15 people or whatever the box is the first row in the

Torrey Hawkins (46:59.032)
Or Australia where it's literally sitting off to the side where the the clock is and it's their literal section dedicated solely to them. These are seats cordoned off.

Alvin Owusu (47:04.327)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:08.847)
This is, these are seats. There are four seats that say player, player one, like one, two, three, four. And then, but you could effectively, there are six seats or eight seats in that row. You could sit right next to them if you want to. But Cam Norrie was playing against Brandon Nakashima and I sat right behind Norrie's box. I was like, cause I'm like, there's no better place for me to sit and learn what these players are actually like and going through during a tennis match than right here. And Cam.

Torrey Hawkins (47:13.907)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (47:20.405)
Right, right, right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (47:35.305)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:38.918)
Cam's box was juxtaposed to Elena's box, like very, very chill. Like LA, LA, every once in a while Cam is just like very cerebral, like just kind of talking to them, talking through it. And that's a really, really fun way to experience tennis match. Like very fun way to experience tennis match. And you've been in it.

Torrey Hawkins (47:45.043)
Very true. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (47:52.574)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (47:56.049)
Right, right. I would, I wanna add.

I have the feeling and I've seen some of the comments you've shared and some of them that I've seen. Our, many of our listeners, viewers are extremely solid tennis fans themselves. I would even tell you that I don't really care for the matches. I hate to say it. I care only for the practice of course and the practice sessions. And I'll tell you why.

Alvin Owusu (48:16.857)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:26.603)
Hahaha!

Torrey Hawkins (48:32.55)
I'm only seeing a snippet of that player in that match. I am not seeing him or her in a more of a true neutral setting. In that match, I've got the history, how they're feeling that day. What day of in a row is this of them playing a tournament? You know, are they defending or not? What's the head to head? All the other match minutia.

right? That the commentator may or may not bore me with. But in practice, there's rarely a bad day of practice. There's rarely a day that I'm out there hitting the ball and I get to see them. It's like the professional tennis Academy, if you will, when you see him out there practice courts and I as a coach, I as a player, enjoy watching them train them getting better at their craft. They're going to go out there and hit the tennis ball as good as they possibly can on match day.

Alvin Owusu (49:16.643)
Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (49:31.432)
But I got to see them for that hour and a half play, hit, train, shag balls, hit out balls. And I got to see occasionally just a little bit of magic. I don't necessarily see a lot of that in the matches themselves. There's an occasional Carlos that'll show a little hot dog in there. He'll show a little between the leg and a little bit of a dang every once in a while and some fireworks. But in general,

A lot of the pros are pretty buttoned up. You know what mean? They're pretty trying to get that match, right? It's a business at that point. And the practice courts, man, you're watching them just train. You're watching them just go at it. They're talking, they're going back and forth. Two on ones, one on twos, play points. And it just, you know, I've been to lot of tournaments like you have, Alvin, and I've seen a lot of practice courts. And I gotta tell you, it's everybody don't care where you're from around the world. Everybody speaks tennis.

Alvin Owusu (50:14.177)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (50:30.707)
And it's just so good to see when you're watching it. That's where it's pure to me. And I love when I see it. The matches can be, you know, sometimes take a little bit, especially early on in the tournament, right? Now the grand slam, obviously the matches can be what they are, but just saying for me, I am probably 80, 20 practice courts to match courts. And just for my own two cents of what you were saying.

Alvin Owusu (50:43.746)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (50:52.879)
would say.

Alvin Owusu (50:57.477)
No, I'm right there with you. like when I got on site on Wednesday, I got there about noon and I went shh and I had a seat in the stadium, right? So like there's matches going on in the stadium, there are matches going on the outside courts, beeline to the practice courts. I went straight to the practice courts. And in DC, they did a really good job of setting up, I guess they moved it from previous years, but now like where all the food is, it's in this indoor like.

Torrey Hawkins (51:14.727)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (51:25.975)
makeshift indoor food hall essentially that runs the width of the practice court. There are five practice courts in a row, or maybe six right there off the kind of behind the stadium. And the food hall is right behind it. So you can be getting your food and watch practice. You can go right outside and go right behind the courts and watch practice. like.

Torrey Hawkins (51:28.126)
Okay, okay.

Torrey Hawkins (51:32.274)
Right, right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (51:43.737)
Right. Hey, watch it. Sure. Sure.

Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (51:51.941)
I spent so much time out there. I saw so many players getting their work in. It's also my favorite part. The matches, especially in order, going inside the stadium to watch a match is my least favorite thing to do. I had stadium tickets on both days. saw, I don't think I watched a single match. I think I watched one game of Raducanu and Osaka in the stadium. And I was like, don't wanna sit here anymore. This is not fun.

Torrey Hawkins (51:59.087)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:21.081)
Yeah. Right. And remember, old Louie, old Louie used to have the seats where you could kind of watch both, right? You could kind of be looking over the, you could look at the top row and watch both matches at one point in time. To your point.

Alvin Owusu (52:21.88)
This is the worst way to watch tennis actually. And I might sell my US Open tickets to be honest with you. If I can get a grounds pass, I might just sell my Louis Armstrong tickets. Because I don't want to watch tennis in there.

Alvin Owusu (52:35.776)
on the on the top and look in the... Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (52:40.604)
about the practice courts and having the way it's set up that way. remember Atlanta had it that way for our last year here. They had that little indoor food tent there. The US opening in years past.

Alvin Owusu (52:49.828)
But their practice scores were off-site though. They practiced at Georgia Tech.

Torrey Hawkins (52:53.66)
Sure, sure. But the later the tournament by Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the other courts are open, right? So then you can watch and it's right next to where the food was. I say it to say the US Open in recent years, different than 20 years ago, they even have monitors that show the practice court schedule. So you can actually go see the players. You know when so-and-so was on the practice courts, because it's right there. And to me, getting a chance to watch a player, especially for me, you know, I'm...

Alvin Owusu (52:57.124)
Right, yeah. Yep, yep.

Alvin Owusu (53:10.83)
Yeah

Torrey Hawkins (53:20.825)
I look forward to watching Carlos practice, but I'm also looking forward to watch, you know, Kaboli, for example, who's the new player. I wouldn't have known him unless I've watched him at a practice court setting. I'm like, who's that kid over there? And I'm watching him. The kid's pretty good. And you like seeing that because you don't know, obviously with the bigger slams, watching the up and coming juniors, right? There's a lot of, you know, it's just a really neat time to kind of really see who's kind of up and coming and who's practicing because you don't always watch them.

They may not be around by Friday or Saturday. And that's when you might get a chance to see them. So I'm with you. just feel like the practice courts are huge.

Alvin Owusu (53:51.737)
Exactly.

Alvin Owusu (53:55.705)
And Kabali, Kabali, Kabali is a good, that's a perfect example because he was, he was in the tournament as well. I saw him practice for a bit and like that kid, that kid's got something. Like he's, he's, he's, he's got something. Like he hits a, like you're, I'm watching him, like he's hitting, I think Taylor was maybe two courts down and maybe Diallo was right there. But like you watch him hit and it's like, he gets a lot out of the legs. Like.

Torrey Hawkins (54:08.094)
I like him a lot. I like him a lot. say Kaboli, but Kabali. I like him a lot. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (54:24.293)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Fig jam. Fig jam all day. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:24.834)
He hits a big ball out of the legs. I mean, he has that high level soccer background, but he gets a lot out of those legs. He also carries himself like he's that dude. Which is like, yeah, he's got Fig Jam or BDE as the kids might call it. But yeah, you can look that up in your own, all the acronyms, you're getting them all, all the acronyms here.

Torrey Hawkins (54:50.618)
the

Alvin Owusu (54:54.168)
But yeah, he's got it. He's really, really got it. like right before, mentioned like professional tennis academy for us, know, the coaching standpoint of like, I'm just walking the back of the courts and like Naomi is hitting right next to Emma Radikanu and they're gonna be playing in about 30 minutes. It's like on TV, that match looks like it's in the stadium, but it's a big match, but like it's just tennis. were, I'm like,

Torrey Hawkins (55:15.281)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (55:21.881)
is 10. Right.

Alvin Owusu (55:23.108)
30 minutes ago, they were right outside the stadium, hitting with their respective teams right next to each other. And Danielle Collins was on the front court. And it's just, it's so cool to see, like, to your point, okay, I venture out to one of, there's one practice court that's kind of like over by the the grandstand, one of the other smaller stadium courts, and it's a standalone court. And Dan Evans is out there working out with,

Torrey Hawkins (55:29.83)
Yep.

Right.

Torrey Hawkins (55:48.021)
and

Alvin Owusu (55:51.862)
Jonesy and Billy Harris and

Torrey Hawkins (55:55.335)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (55:58.274)
I'm standing over there and there aren't lot of people there and I am on the side of the fence and they're hitting they're working out working out and they're doing this this dance at the baseline Billy's at the service box and Billy will feed him one Dan rips Billy goes open court with the volley and they play it out from there and Dan kept Passing Billy with backhands cross court like regardless of how well Billy would hit that hit that first volley Dan would just pass him cross guard pass across and then he says something to him about

Torrey Hawkins (56:06.161)
Thank

Torrey Hawkins (56:22.8)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (56:28.085)
he starts kinda giving him little bit of coaching advice. He's like, hey, you're just giving that away too early. I see it every single time. He's like, don't have to guard the cross court, or down the line that hard when you're that close. He's like, even if you guess wrong, you're right there. You can just stab. And so I'm on the fence, and when they go back to hitting, so Jonesy is this British guy, he's a hitting partner.

Torrey Hawkins (56:33.768)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (56:39.844)
that much, Yeah.

Right.

Alvin Owusu (56:57.379)
He kind of travels around and he's hitting partner with Dan, but also at events as well. he's a working, I think he was acting as, he was his coach this week. So when they go back to hitting, I'm on the side and Jonesy's like right in front of me and I'm like, hey Jonesy, and he's like, who the hell are you? And I'm like, don't worry about who I am. What was that bit Dan said about, what was he talking about there? Was he talking about the actual volley? Was he talking about the positioning? And he's looking at me like kind of quizzical, like kind of sound like you know what you're talking about.

Torrey Hawkins (57:04.037)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:07.407)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:14.404)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (57:26.318)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (57:26.431)
and he explained it to me because he was closer, like what Dan was saying, what I just told you. And I was like, you don't, like this is what it's about. Like this is what it's about. Like it's about the tennis and when you come out to the practice courts, it's just about the tennis. Also, Dan and Billy were both going shirtless in this practice. One looks like a professional tennis player, the other one did not. I was just gonna say, you gotta tighten up my guy. It's you gotta go tighten up my guy.

Torrey Hawkins (57:45.22)
Yeah. Yeah. I was at a tournament one year at LA Hard Courts and the Bryan Brothers were over there obviously training him.

Alvin Owusu (57:56.035)
Torrey Hawkins (58:03.617)
They were, know, probably right near where they had played, played a lot of tennis, you know, for their, for a large part them growing up. And I was so blown away at their doubles workout and just how intense and how intentional the workouts were. And I remember watching and a few other times, you know, to your point, some of these gyms and some of these top players will give you, you know, about, just in general, you know, you know, a lot of, and for me as a coach, you know, some of the stuff was some myth busters, right. And,

Alvin Owusu (58:17.665)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (58:33.327)
I remember, I remember one of them so, so clearly was, trying to remember who the player was. He was trying to, in a nice way, he kind of put me in my place. You know what I mean? I was talking about the need to split step and go forward. And he was like, yeah, coach, I agree with you, but man, you gotta have time for that though. And he's like, if you don't have time, if you don't have time, I know for me, and this guy's number one in the world doubles, for me.

Alvin Owusu (58:56.032)
Hahaha

Torrey Hawkins (59:02.063)
didn't have time. mean, what could I do? You know, you don't have time split step. And he said it in such a nice way. It was like, I know what you're trying to say, but that ball is coming 150 miles an hour. Good luck with the split step. You better, you better hop and lean forward and just, and educatedly guess which way that ball's going. Because the technique of your split step is a little lost at that speed. And it was just, it was the, it was the

Alvin Owusu (59:13.537)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (59:21.334)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (59:30.543)
I couldn't have been more humbled and silenced like, oh, good point. Because the way, right. But he said it in such a way that was like, and he watched a couple of points and he was like, you know what I think? I think he's better served doing this and this. And he said it so as a matter of fact, and I was like, God, how did I not see that? You know, again, but.

Alvin Owusu (59:35.265)
Yeah. If that's, if that's split step, it's not get ready. It's hold on.

Torrey Hawkins (59:55.566)
The tennis IQ of some of these guys is just so, so, so high. know, just again, to your point, you love hearing even that little nugget, you know what mean? And now, and now when he said it, you're looking for like, yeah, yeah, now that you say it, he was, he was laying a little bit on that line, wasn't he? And, but you didn't necessarily pick it up before, you know what I mean? So it's just, it's funny what you can see.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:04.183)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:14.626)
Right, no.

And then the, like, you know, another one to take away is it's like the, levels of tennis that we're talking about here. Right. So out of the, out on the practice courts, like you see everyone from, I guess the highest ranked player is like in the tournaments that I saw. I saw Taylor. So he was the one seed. I saw Jessica practicing. It's also the one seed. but they got to hit with somebody. Right. So then in this event, they weren't often hitting with, other players in the tournament. They were hitting with.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:22.584)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:38.262)
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:47.395)
hitting players, like hitting partners. Like, not hitting partners, but like, there's a stable of players who are there who are good players who are on, they're at, know, a Pagula has a hit at one o'clock and needs a hitting partner. Okay, cool, one of the hitting partners will go out there and hit with Jessica. Or she requests one of them, whatever it might be. Because I saw a lot of the same guys out there hitting with, I saw, you know, guy hitting with Jessica, I saw that same guy hitting with Kabali later on. And there's a kid from Florida, I saw him,

Torrey Hawkins (01:00:48.339)
Right. Yeah. Right.

But.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:17.325)
He's wearing his Florida gear, but he's hitting it with a bunch of different players. And so like, it's like, yeah, these guys are good too. They're good too. They're just not that good. Right, they're not that good. There's something missing. I was talking to this lady who's very knowledgeable tennis fan, and she's like, yeah, they're so good right here, but they obviously have to be missing something. I was like, they're not playing points. They're not serving. They're not returning.

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:20.038)
Yeah.

Yeah, that good right

Torrey Hawkins (01:01:40.053)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:43.139)
was like, this kid's pretty good. I'm sure Taylor starts serving, he's got a whole different set of problems to deal with. And then you go into the, but like, that's practice, right? In practice you can see, like some of the players, like, like, Kalinskaya, right? Had a great year last year, not so great and started this year, got caught up in the Jannik Sinner whirlwind and then like now she's back and she's healthy and she's playing. I saw her

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:01.485)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:08.346)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:12.61)
two years ago at the Australian Open and I was like, okay, well, she's healthy again. She's looking decent. Okay, fine. I saw her hit last week or yesterday. I'm like, damn, she's good. She hits that forehand as clean as Christmas, like effortlessly. And I was like, now I see why she has like, she's got top 20 potential if she's healthy. And it's like, I, but I hadn't really considered her as a top 20 player because I hadn't really seen her play that much. But like I'm sitting here watching her work out and I'm like,

Torrey Hawkins (01:02:23.634)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:42.624)
Yeah, that's a good ball. That's a really, really good ball. And then the other thing, gonna travel with, I got two other things I wanna talk to you about. This is like my thing here.

The difference between 50 in the world and 30 in the world. Like the separator here.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:03.936)
Mmm. Oof. You better have your micrometer out, you know what mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:03:10.56)
you better have your micrometer out. And if I had to take one thing away, there are some players who have a very firm understanding of how to use the spin of the ball. And it sounds really simple, right? But I'll take a match which I watched very closely the entirety of this match. Andre Rublev, I told you we weren't gonna talk about him again until we needed to talk about him.

We need to talk about him now because I sat through an hour and 45 minutes of his match against Lerner Tien. Right? And I'll bring this up again because I watched Lerner Tien play the next match against Alexander Davidovich, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina Yeah, so Rublev won fan favorite. People love Rublev. They love him. They love him. He's practicing, they're following him during the matches. His match was packed. They were there to see him because I know because in the next match,

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:40.843)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:44.256)
Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:49.067)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:03:53.398)
Fuckin' hell,

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:01.204)
Yep. Lerner, yeah. Except another short lefty who's wearing his jersey.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:09.098)
No one really, no one cares about Lerner Tien. They were there for Alex.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:19.946)
Hey, look, look, I, I appreciate Lerner Tien. I saw him, I saw him when I was Australia in 23, I saw him in junior, in the junior event. And that was my first time seeing him in person. So big fan of his game. But in that matchup, right? I was like, I really wanted to get a grasp of like, how does Lerner win these matches against these, against these big players? He's top 40 in the world at this point. Like, he's like, he's no joke. Like he's going, looks like he's, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:25.247)
I love learners.

Yeah, you told me. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:04:41.772)
Yeah, top team players. Yeah, yeah. And had a handful of good top 10 wins. mean, he's been doing really well with it.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:49.598)
Yeah, and in this matchup, I did notice like, there's one thing that I picked up on pretty early. I'm like, why is, when they get into cross-court rallies, why is Lerner trying to go so flat through the court, you know, from the, especially on the forehand side, from the outside, back to Andre's backhand, like on a rope. I'm like, it doesn't really feel like that's the right shot, because you're not, one, he's not making it, and two, he makes it, he's kind of at a disadvantage. At about the fifth game in the first set, I noticed that,

learner decides to hit that same shot now with shape, right? Andre comes back more so with the ball coming at the baseline as opposed to attempting to cross over the sideline. And then learner stings his ass up the line. Boom, winner. Huh, okay. And then it happened again. And then it happened again. There's probably four, this happened four times in two games. Ad court rally, goes heavy. Andre comes back, cross court, learner, boom, down the line.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:20.937)
Right, Yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:36.62)
That's a pattern.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:47.754)
And then now you start to realize, okay, he's gonna, he's gonna start playing this was he yet. That's the pattern and learner found the pattern. He just took them. It took him a minute to, to find it, but he found it in real time. was so cool watching the super computer do its thing. Like, you know, we all have these patterns. We have these game plans. We have these shots, but then you get into a match and you got to figure out what's going to work like right here, right now today. And to see him do it in real time was. I'm so appreciative of like that being the case and exposing kind of like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:05:52.972)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:16.991)
Rubleb's weakness is like, Rubleb don't move that well side to side. Like that's kind of his, like his Achilles heel. It's like, yeah, he can hit it hard, but he doesn't ever hit it hard with shape. Like he can't really pull you off the court. And then if you go pace line, he does not move laterally very well. So like, you put that all together and it's like, is, you can see it come together with someone who has the ability to vary shape, vary spin.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:20.017)
Sure. Descript the night. Yeah, no, I'm with you.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:34.706)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:41.098)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:06:46.708)
and make those micro adjustments, which didn't help Lerner so much in his next match against David Ivanovich Kena.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:48.916)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:06:54.285)
Right, right. I was just looking at the scores. was trying to figure out what was the scores in that match, in that next match. Five and two against Rublev and what was the scores against Davides Fikina? Oh, two and two? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's tough. And back to back dates too, because you're at that part of the tournament where you start to play back to back again. So, could also have been tough.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:00.769)
I mean...

Alvin Owusu (01:07:06.252)
Like two, maybe two and two. Yeah. Yeah. cause the bit of cicada like

Alvin Owusu (01:07:14.418)
It was back to back. Yeah. Divinitor Kano, if you watch him play, you think he's, he's top 10 in the world. Like the way that guy moves and the, the weight of shot he's able to, able to produce from like anywhere in the court. It's, it's unreal. It's unreal. But like in the greatest game of things, like he he ain't that good. Like just kind of crazy. Like he's 30 ish in the world. Maybe, maybe they're, they're about the same, but like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:26.633)
Right.

Right. Yeah, not great.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:35.56)
Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:42.114)
He made Learner look like a child. He looked like a child.

Torrey Hawkins (01:07:45.619)
Yeah. After a learner route, know, straight said it, you know, your boy five in the world, you know, five seed, what's Andre 10 in the world, 11 the world, give or take, you know, rubble up. Cause I'm saying that's to my point. And I think, and I think that's where the average, in my opinion, the average fan, doesn't always understand the matchups. don't always, they don't always understand what a surface difference can do and what a

Alvin Owusu (01:07:56.651)
Can see around there? Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:08:13.95)
You know, and then on a given day, know, Rublev is really the person with a little less info on Lerner. He's only played so many matches, right? He probably hadn't only played them a handful of times. If that, if that this wasn't the first time playing where Lerner's got a lot of info and match, you know, data bank on Andre, right? So I'm just saying it's one of those, because he's seen him play for five years, right? As far as watching him on the tour. So I don't know, there's.

There's so many layers to it, Alvin. I personally think that's what's fun about tennis. When you then see that player. he beats, Lerner beats Andre here. And then let's just say next week, you know, or wherever they're at it next. What's the next tournament? it, when's Cincinnati? Toronto vs Cincinnati?

Alvin Owusu (01:08:57.889)
Toronto, Toronto slash Montreal and then Cincinnati.

Torrey Hawkins (01:09:04.842)
Right. So, you know, then you see, let's just say Andre goes ham on, the, you know, on the two terms from now, it gets to the, you know, it to a semi or, or, or finally you're like, and then you remember when you play you being learner 10, I beat that guy five and two, two weeks ago. You know what I mean? And, and, and was that, was that the same Andre? You don't know. You know, was it, has he got that pattern figured out? That's also what you live with the hard court season is that it's also

You know, it can be pretty, it can be pretty hot and heavy. And what you did well on week, let's just say 23, ain't the same thing, you know, ain't the same place on week 26. Or I'm just spitting ball in the number here. And then by the time the opening gets here, we've had about five, six weeks where we're all starting to get our legs under us for hard court. And those that are still healthy enough to keep going are gonna show you a little bit of magic. And that's kind of what I really like about the hard court season is that.

You got to start bringing it now. The guys that don't have a ton of weapons have really fine tuned the passes, the returns. The guys that have the serves and then the big fours, they're dialed in. mean, those balls are coming off like rockets, you know? And then it's just fun to see. then everything kind of, to your point, crescendos right to that point at the open. it's pretty clean tennis, you know? It's pretty clean. It's a ball strikers, ball strikers.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:17.205)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:31.103)
At that point, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:34.811)
extravaganza you know at that point.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:37.011)
Yeah. And it's, yeah, so that, mean, that was, that was really, that was really, really cool to see. And then also, kind of my last point is like, you get to, this would probably change based on where you are, but you get to see the players that really resonate with fans. Like anytime there was a crowd, I got to the point of realizing like, give me a predict, like who was around.

Torrey Hawkins (01:10:51.454)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:03.593)
Who was it? Yeah. Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:06.305)
Ben Shelton is he's that dude right now like the the people love Ben Shelton they love Ben Shelton and is he I think is lots of like yeah, there's a lot going on there like his girlfriend was in town as well Trinity and That is yes, that's his girlfriend. But also Trinity Rodman is a whole whole person to herself She is a professional soccer player who has a whole Whole thing of her own but the two of them together make a make a beautiful thing, but they were doing they were like

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:12.925)
Yeah. Yeah. Lots of like.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:20.328)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:26.898)
Sure. Sure.

Yep.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:36.115)
handing out ice cream in this ice cream truck and like the swarm of people around. I've heard the ice cream was really good, so maybe that's it too. But I was like, what is going on over here? I was just over here, there was nothing going on. I'm here, there's something going on. Ben's in the thing, he's doing the thing. And then later on, like the next day I come back and I see a swarm of players around that single, the court that I was watching Dan Evans practice on, I saw a swarm of people around that court. I was like, I Ben's are over there.

Torrey Hawkins (01:11:43.632)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:04.332)
I just bet Ben's practicing over there. I get over there, I make it enough, far over enough just to peek onto the court. see Brian, I was like, yeah, there you go. Okay, yeah, this is what happens when Ben is, even more so than Francis. It's Ben and then like, Emma Raducanu People just flock to see them. It's, you know, it's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:12.814)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:22.032)
Yeah, sure. What was, I have to interject and maybe change your track. This is Francis' more or less home mini slam there in DC. How was the crowd with him? Good to see him playing a couple of good matches. How did you find him and the crowd? Were you able to watch one of his matches?

Alvin Owusu (01:12:37.8)
Uh-huh.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:48.224)
I declined to watch one of his matches. So he was playing a night match against Kova Sech, Kova Sech, Kova Sech, 18 back in, American kid. But at the same time, Kosovic, sorry. At the same time, Rybakina and I was playing against Victoria Mboko and that's the match I wanted to watch. But it was on the stadium, it was on the smaller stadium court that was right outside the big stadium court.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:52.123)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:12:58.534)
Yep, yep, Kosovic, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:08.495)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:15.264)
So I could hear it and I could see the scoreboard too. So I could see the score going on. Francis won that match in three, but I could hear it. So the fan support was there, like it was big. And when he was out practicing in the practice court, it's like people were there as well. He's definitely still the hometown kid. I saw a lot of people around with JTCC or JCT.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:18.693)
Right, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:24.604)
Good.

Torrey Hawkins (01:13:35.867)
JT, yeah. JTCC. Junior Tennis Championship Center or whatever it is called. Yeah, JTCC. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:40.906)
JTCC shirts.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:45.953)
Okay, so yeah, I saw a lot of people with those shirts around. Saw Francis' dad around, like he's out there with the people. So yeah, he still got that hometown energy. I think it was only usurped by the Venus Williams energy. was, I think that was probably the, but still, two sides of the same coin, if you will. People were out there for.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:11.782)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:14.464)
They were riding for Francis. And Francis has been on tour for a long time though, so I think they're used to seeing him at this event and used to seeing him come home. Yeah, but that was really cool. But yeah, I would say.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:18.823)
Yeah, right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:26.277)
Who are you impressed with?

Alvin Owusu (01:14:30.753)
as a player? Like from what in general?

Torrey Hawkins (01:14:33.902)
in general, somebody that you had not seen a lot. Sounds like Kabali was one. Who else did you see? Guy or girl that you saw that you were like, wow, I didn't realize they were that good. Or I hadn't heard a lot about this player, but the more I watched, the more I like, you'll be hearing about that player soon. Give me your kind of, you know, ready to make a breakout soon or your don't sleep on dot, dot, dot.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:51.168)
Mmm

Alvin Owusu (01:15:02.378)
You know, that's a good one. That's a really good one because you make me think here because I watch a lot of tennis, right? And I have watched a lot of tennis for a lot of years. So like, as far as players that surprise me, I wasn't really surprised by anyone per se.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:17.906)
Okay. And by surprise, let me qualify, impressed with more than you were before. I'm not looking for somebody to knock you. I'm asking somebody that upon further investigation, you realize how good they have gotten or how you mentioned something about, about Colin Sky as you know, her forehand and so on. Like, but that's a shock, right? That's not necessarily a whole game. Who's somebody that you watched that you said, wow.

Alvin Owusu (01:15:26.014)
Yeah, okay, fair. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:15:45.458)
This person can make a move. could be a top 10. I'm not putting words in your mouth. Tell me who impressed you significantly more than you were before going to Mubadala City Open.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:01.318)
Yeah, let's say Victoria Mboko and I mean that's a name that she's kind of hit the scene in the last probably right before French Open is when I think people started when she qualified and they made a run there Beats of players. So she's not a nobody. She's very young But seeing her, know from two rows up getting it like I specifically saw that match on the schedule like that's the match I want to see it's that one and I want to be as close as possible not hard to get close

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:05.487)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:26.96)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:32.48)
She I saw her practice first and then saw her play and I noticed something on her forehand Not really a hitch But she has one of those four hands that like right before she makes contact She kind of pulls her head away and I caught it. Yes, I caught it and I was like When I was watching her practice I was like two quarts away from hers I couldn't

Torrey Hawkins (01:16:42.321)
Hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:59.146)
Really get like a zoom in like why is that what what exactly am I seeing outside of that hitch? But then when I watched her play the match and I saw it I was like, okay Now I understand what the hitch is coming from she gets she gets too close to the forehand and That hitch is like it's her adjustment at the very last minute Trying to get away from it, right? And so what does that what does that matter? Like she hits a pretty big for him, but it could be 20 % bigger like it could be it could be bigger and eventually

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:02.799)
Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:10.183)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Get away from it. Sure. See you next time.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:27.343)
Right. I used to say the same thing about Carlos's serve, by the way. It's funny you say that. And it took an article I read about slight change to a serve. And I used to always say, I can't put my finger on it, but something about that serve is off. This is, you know, three or four years ago, when you first seen. And sure enough, I saw an article this year and I was like, that's it. I like, couldn't, I could not put my finger on why was that serve, you know, cause it happened so fast, Unless I have, unless I've done, you know, slow-mo on it and had.

Alvin Owusu (01:17:53.726)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:17:56.945)
you know, whatever, dart fish, swing vision, whatever. couldn't be able to tell coaches eye, whatever. I couldn't be able to see it in real time. And once I saw it, and once I saw the person realize what the person had done the whole him four years ago has served now. And I was like, where it is. And to your point, you love seeing that kind of thing. Cause they're hitting a good ball now. Can you imagine if it gets a little cleaner, a little bigger, that can be a game changer.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:11.367)
Right, yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:21.791)
Right, and so like that's the kind of stuff that you notice when you get close enough that like that little, she had a tough time. mean, Rebecca is a fantastic player, right? Former Grand Slam champion, top three in the world, whatever. She had a tough time dictating on the forehand side because she just didn't have enough space to do it, especially with how big that ball was coming at her. So like early in that match, she looked a little bit shell shocked at the, just the.

And I think the courts were playing a little fast. Like I saw a little sheen on them and like, sorry, I should have went out there and got my foot on the court when I had the chance. But the courts were playing a little bit fast and we back and I came out smoking. But the thing that impressed me the most about Victoria is like, she, I was like thinking like, you need to, like you can't stay in this, like in these types of rallies with her. She will knock you off this court. And at one point she was on my side of the court. She's like, I saw her mouth, like what the hell are you?

Torrey Hawkins (01:18:51.77)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:00.879)
and

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:10.16)
Right. Yeah. Right. You know it. Right. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:20.475)
hit the ball with some shape. Victoria said that to herself and I was like, there you go. It's good to see you, as a player, you're in it and it's happening. It's easy to see what's going on from the sideline, but she saw it in real time and was able to turn that set around a little bit, stay close to Elena for a bit before Elena pulled off on her. that was that, seeing her get into that match and then compete.

Torrey Hawkins (01:19:47.246)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:19:47.263)
with a player who's seen the highest levels and still has, you know, is still a top player. I was very impressed with that and considering.

how unfinished she is as a player. Like you see players on television and you assume that they are, like this is a professional tennis player. Like I saw the grip on the volley. I'm like, what the hell is that? What are you doing?

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:02.085)
Right. Right. Like, like, like, right. Like you assume all of them are finished products and like most of us, they're all still works in progress. They've just gotten a lot, but they're, they're pretty good for the state they're in and still have a few things to polish up on. Okay. Here's the next question.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:15.065)
Right, but she's nowhere close.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:24.019)
right.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:28.543)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:28.922)
Who were you unimpressed with and wouldn't be surprised if they shut it down within the next six months to a year or so based off of what you saw. I'm not asking you to put anybody's shut it down, retire, or they'll go from 20 to outside the top 50 or and such. That's all I'm asking. I'm not asking you to play Fortune Tell. I'm asking you to tell me.

Alvin Owusu (01:20:43.519)
shut it down like retire or.

Torrey Hawkins (01:20:57.935)
Whose game were you like, woof? I hope this was an off week for them because they did not look very good at all. Male or female?

Alvin Owusu (01:21:04.031)
Yeah, so I mean, just look at when they lost the event, like Rublev taking that loss pretty early is not a good sign. All things considered, played a Carlos tough at Wimbledon and that was I think in the, that was like round of 16 maybe? So that was, I mean that was good, but then now following it up with a second round loss maybe. Less than healthy. Jessica.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:20.277)
16th button? Yeah, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:31.096)
So JPEG lost, Yep. In three.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:32.305)
lost to Leila Fernandez in the second or third round, third round maybe. It was yesterday, so that after losing first round at Wimbledon, like, and then she has, remember she finals US Open last year, she's got a lot of points to defend, so that's a big deal. Not to say anything about the state of her game, I saw her practice for a little bit, and she seemed fine, but Leila's playing well right now. Also just beat Taylor Townsend in her next match.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:44.662)
Yup. Yup. Yup.

Torrey Hawkins (01:21:53.687)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:01.981)
So that's like, that's like, now we're talking about points and points to defend and like how that impacts your ranking. think that's.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:06.678)
Yeah, I'm asking more. Yeah, yeah, I'm asking more eye test. mean, I don't think JPEG is going to drop outside of the top 10 anytime soon. Could have a blip here and there. I think her game is solidly in place and no different than, well, will she drop a point or two here and there for sure? But do I see her dropping outside of top 25? Probably not. Not this year, not anytime soon. Anybody that looked a little long in the tooth, anybody that looked a little bit like,

I don't know what they're doing, but they need to change something pretty soon. more, and again, and if there was, that's fair. You didn't see him on that first one, man. Yeah, okay, that's fair.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:39.976)
Yeah, didn't see a player who I would consider entering the long and the tooth space simply because like Monfils would be considered long in the tooth, but he was out before I got there. Like tournament starts on Monday, I got there on Wednesday, so he was already.

Torrey Hawkins (01:22:50.851)
I Right? Right. I think Monfais is in a, not only is he, he is in a weird past long in the tooth phase. is, a normal Monfais would have retired. I say normal, there's no normal Monfais. A normal tour player would have shut it down six years ago. Monfais is still having fun out there. is, Monfais is the new,

Alvin Owusu (01:23:13.929)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:20.928)
and improve 3.0 version of Mansur Barami. know, he makes watching tennis fun. He is entertainment. He happens to the tennis ball. He's just still so good and still in such good shape that he's still competing on the ATP tour. But make no mistake, I will pay money when he ever comes to Atlanta or goes wherever that I will want to watch him play again, just to see what he will do with said ball, right?

Alvin Owusu (01:23:49.673)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:23:50.094)
I think Monfise is, he's a magician, you know what I mean? Who was the guy that used to do all the crazy tricks, look like he was floating on the air? Chris, was it Chris Angel or whatever the guy was that did all the crazy, know, he's that with the tennis ball. I mean, he just does some things that you're like, that was routine forehand. He just hit a hitch kick, both feet in the air, slap forehand.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:05.556)
yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:17.595)
Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:19.38)
Approach shot, you know what I mean? Like because they can because they can't know there's no reason for it anyway So I'm not he is he is permanently in a different category of long the tooth I mean he is he should he should have a player his age would retire long ago, but and that's fair Talk about Alex demon or because the demon to me is one of those players where I I was hoping you'd come to that one. I didn't know I had nothing against Alex

Alvin Owusu (01:24:23.378)
Because again.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:35.846)
Yeah, well, let me talk about Alex De Minaur for a second because...

Torrey Hawkins (01:24:49.048)
Tell me what you're gonna say. I don't play the jury.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:50.44)
So I watched Alex play Jiri Lahechka and I left right before the third set started. needed to go watch another match. But watching Alex D'Monore play tennis, he is in the perfect spot of his career right now where he still has all of his physical abilities. Like he's so fast. He's so fast. He's so fast. And I say that, I'm gonna come back to that, but like he uses, well I'll talk about it now, he uses speed.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:12.705)
Yeah, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:20.208)
as a weapon. And he's able to steal points because of how fast he is. Now, how does that, what does that look like in a tennis match, right? But he's also crafty. So I would see him, okay, for one instance, he's in a backhand to backhand rally with Jiri Lehecka right? And at one point, Jiri goes, opens up the racket face and goes to slice.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:21.143)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:26.559)
Okay.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:42.246)
Mm-hmm.

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:49.418)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:50.271)
Alex B lines it in and hits a not great drop volley, but it's a winner. A normal player, he got in that fast, but also he knew I'm fast enough and as soon as he opens that racket face, I'm gone. I'm ghosting, we call it ghosting, right? Like as soon as you open that racket face, he's taken off. And that is how the speed works as a weapon, right?

Torrey Hawkins (01:25:56.684)
Okay, sure. Just because he got in that fast. Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:19.02)
Sure, Best you

Alvin Owusu (01:26:19.876)
If you are, yeah, Jiri can't pull it off, ain't fast enough, so he hasn't put that into his repertoire to even look at that as an option to pull that move off, right? And then the other hand, Jiri missed a lot of drop volleys that he felt like he had to cut too thin because of how fast Alex is.

Torrey Hawkins (01:26:41.586)
Right, of respect to the speed. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:43.516)
Yeah, and so when you see Alex work in the baseline, he has this ability to absorb power and just put it in a space. Like, try to rush him to the forehand, he's, again, his speed allows him to get there with plenty of time, and then also hit a quality ball, not an overwhelming ball, but a quality ball back deep cross court in which you feel like you need to over hit the next ball because how the hell did he get to that ball on balance, on time, and hit that quality of a ball back?

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:10.986)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:13.33)
So that's my kind of take on Alex D. Menor being able to use his speed as a weapon.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:19.468)
Okay

Would you care to offer any thoughts? And I hear you on that, man. That's well said. Would you care to offer any thoughts on the two seed?

Alvin Owusu (01:27:23.465)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:32.766)
Who was seated two in this event?

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:35.02)
My main man, Lorenzo Mosetti.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:40.286)
I didn't see him. was out before I got there. I can only see what's there to be seen. He left before I got there. I just missed him. I just missed him.

Torrey Hawkins (01:27:55.081)
God, that's all. I was hoping I would rope you into that one, but you didn't take the bait early.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:00.094)
I hadn't even considered it because my man was out so early that it didn't even register for me.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:06.38)
He wanted to go buy, he wanted to take the early L and take the girlfriend or wife out to go see the sights. You know what I mean? wanted to.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:17.405)
When did he lose? Did he lose for sure?

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:20.157)
He lost the cam. He lost the cam on Tuesday.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:23.605)
Cam's cams playing well, man. He's he's cams back like cams cams back. He's healthy. He's back. He's doing he's doing cam things like, yeah, he's yeah, I think he's right. He's right back where he needs to be. yeah, I mean, just kind of like from that standpoint, though, like it was a, it was a fantastic experience. I, I cannot emphasize enough, like for people who want to go to the US open, the US open is very attractive. It's the thing that we all know.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:25.939)
Yeah. Yeah. Looks good. He does. He looks good. He looks good. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:36.447)
Yes.

Torrey Hawkins (01:28:44.107)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:52.923)
But like if you can, go to a different event. Like what you really, I think what a fan really wants out.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:00.235)
is a DC like slash Cincinnati like experience. You know what I mean?

Alvin Owusu (01:29:05.059)
Yeah, like if you really want to like, if you want it to be different than what you see on TV, you're gonna need to get close to the players and you can get as close as you want at these smaller events. Like, even Charleston, I've talked about Charleston before and I went earlier in the spring, like I walked right past Jessica Buller, she's walking around the site with her dog and like no one bothers her. Like just, no one bothers them. It's just, at that point it's the purest of the pure. It's just tennis. It's just tennis. So I would,

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:16.811)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:27.007)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (01:29:35.471)
So many thumbs up, so many votes for going to quote unquote smaller events. The tennis is just as good. Yeah, you might not see Carlos, you might not see Iga or Center or Sabalenka. But if you go to the US Open, you're gonna be so far up, you're not gonna see them anyways. It's not what you want.

Torrey Hawkins (01:29:39.967)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would I would even add to that.

It's kind of good to get a little break from Carlos and Yannick and get away from a little bit of, of Coco and, and, and Eega and, and Arena because we see enough of them at some of the bigger tournaments. It's not to say that they are that we ever get tired of watching them, but this is a good, these are the tournaments where, you know, the 500th used to be the two 50s, especially where the tour splits them all up where they can't all be in the same spot.

And so it's neat to see the other players. You don't appreciate how good the others are and you don't appreciate how, you know, the other, you know, the next tier, how good they are until you go watch a tournament. And that's like this. And I agree with you. think that's, you know, we always, if you were to go watch a regular NBA game in a rando city, you would be impressed with a couple of players on the team that you may not.

You know, that team may not be the Oklahoma City Thunder, you know, but there are many more players that are good all over. If you just, you know, if you just watched enough and I think, I think golf has this, think basketball of course has this. think tennis has this, but I think we have, and I'm to put a plug on here for bad commentating due to some bad commentating. tend to be told.

that this player is X, Y, and Z. This player is a journeyman. This player is not really inside of top 50. And then we're not necessarily educated on the up and comers, the kid, the people that have some potential, people that are breaking out, you know, where that player in golf, we know about the player that's 62 in the world in golf, who's just getting better every week and really primed to do well this week at such and such, even at

Torrey Hawkins (01:31:53.182)
Doing well this week just means making the cut on the third day. Right. And I think that's the difference in tennis is we have such a zero sum, you know, did you win or lose today? You know, kind of a match. It's winter, it's winter go home that we don't appreciate that every week. And that, that takes its toll on the players. I feel like we need to, to your point, go visit these tournaments, go watch the porthee tournaments, also really become a better fan, become a fan that understands.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:03.089)
Yeah, yeah, it's DigiWinner Liz.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:22.643)
You're not going to win every week. There's only one winner at end of every tournament album, right? There's no 31 people are going to go home disappointed, you know, period. Just by the sheer fact that we start this tournament. And so when you start looking at that, so I look at that. what improvements did they make? What momentum do they build on? And then when that all culminates into the US Open, now you're really seeing more of a, in the sense you're seeing, you're seeing 32 to give or take.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:26.171)
Yep, yep.

Torrey Hawkins (01:32:51.208)
40 stories of momentum and possibilities going into the open, not just who the seeds and what's going on. that's, and that's, and now I the whole year is kind of culminating to the last slam. You know, that to your point, you wanted to, you want to see the tournament, the end of the year tournament, right? Beijing, I always call it Beijing at the end of tournament to be that, to be worth something, right? To have something on the line. So.

Alvin Owusu (01:32:58.523)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:33:15.367)
So, you know, to that point, two players kind of going different directions right now. They play it against each other, Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:24.114)
That's what I thought you were gonna say.

Alvin Owusu (01:33:26.607)
Naomi, I am now worried that we don't have much time left with Naomi because if you choose to believe what she said earlier this year, like if she can't get back to contending for titles, then she's done. She lost to Emma on Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember what it was, so route of 16.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:39.644)
Done. Sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:33:43.976)
Yeah, well.

Alvin Owusu (01:33:52.325)
And I saw, and I also saw Naomi practice and I'm watching her and I'm like, what it takes to be a top player now is different than what it took to be a top player three years ago. Like these girls all move as well as her movement used to be an out, like, like the thing that separated her. Now it is it's table stakes, right? They all move really well. her ball does not have enough variety. I've seen players get

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:02.185)
Wow. I see that then.

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:13.032)
Right

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:20.195)
Or pop.

Alvin Owusu (01:34:21.806)
Yeah, it's it's it's a ball that can you can get grooved on and like Emma got

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:25.48)
She's the new Mary Jo Fernandez, so to speak, very solid player. at the top, ball wasn't quite big enough for her era at that time to really crack that top four, top five.

Alvin Owusu (01:34:29.914)
Okay, fair, yep. So yeah, I saw it might get.

Alvin Owusu (01:34:40.796)
Right, yeah, and there's a lack of variety. She's not winning a ton of points off of her first serve, like easy points. She's just, what she did still well. She's not playing poorly right now. I think it's just normal her. It's just like, she's not, everyone else is kind of caught up. And I felt like that match against Emma was a match she needed to win. But Emma also,

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:53.137)
Right.

Torrey Hawkins (01:34:58.192)
Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:02.735)
Hmm. Made a way.

Alvin Owusu (01:35:07.516)
needed to win, like Emma probably feels like I'm better than her. I should win that match. Right? And so now we have like Emma showed, had a great showing at Wimbledon losing in three sets of Sabalinka. Was it three sets or just, it was two sets and I think it was close to, close to. But then now coming off the back of that first tournament back out the shoot and she's, mean, she's in the quarterfinals, she's in the semifinals.

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:18.506)
Yeah. Yeah. Three. It might have been a close two. Might have been. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:32.679)
We said it, we said it weeks ago. She's playing the best tennis she's played, including the open that she won. She's playing the best tennis of her life right now. And I hope.

Alvin Owusu (01:35:36.355)
She's playing a ball.

Alvin Owusu (01:35:42.972)
Yeah, played, she beat, she beat Sakari today. and so she's going to be in the semis. Also play, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:35:47.648)
And Sakaari is playing better. Sakaari, I was very impressed. I was very impressed with the way Maria was playing right now. I was, I was, I was worried about Maria until I saw her today. I was very worried about her being kind of going the other direction. I don't know Alvin if Naomi will ever come back. I don't see the things she's working on. I don't see the change in her game. I don't see her making enough change to be relevant. I see her tweaking what she used to be.

And I think the flaw, if that's the case, the flaw is in the battle plan. You you cannot continue to fix what used to be number one in the world material from five years ago and retweak it six years from now. And it'd be relevant to be number one in the world material. It is now top 20 in the world material compared to, as you said, table stakes. So I feel like that's an issue and hopefully her and her team will sort that out.

But I am very happy to see Emma. We said it weeks ago, Emma's playing better ball right now. She's playing the best tennis of her life. And it's fun to see. I think it was a tough experience for her, I feel like. And it was almost unfortunate for her to win a slam that early because it set a lot of expectation and a lot of maybe even some, maybe a little serendipity more than it was hard earned, right? That she won when she did, but she's certainly.

Certainly playing good tennis now. I look at what she did early in some ways, similar to what Boris Becker did early on when he won Wimby at 18 and 19. He was not a complete player. He just happened to win Wimbledon.

Alvin Owusu (01:37:19.184)
Yeah, you know.

But he was, yeah, but he was a freak though. When you saw him, you were like, okay, that's different. That is a different thing. Right, yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:37:29.531)
For sure. Hence the second Wimbledon. I'm saying is that, but then for five more years, he wasn't even getting in the finals of big events. And then when he won the open about four or five years later, Boris was a complete player. And I say that to say, think Emma, and by the way, I'm giving Emma the highest of comparisons in that sense, because often, I hate when we do this, we see a similar situation, but we give them.

the kudos on sometimes before the kudos are truly deserved. But I think in her case, she will end up proving to this, proving this to be the case. She is headed to some really, really good results. I would have no question with her. I would have no question thinking she would reach a quarter or semi draw, draw dependent, of course, getting to one of those later stages in a slam with the way she's playing. anyway, that's.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:08.764)
I hope so.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:20.636)
Well, let's even remove the qualifier of draw dependent. Like, this is what we want from our top players. Like, you are the dependent, right? If you were actually someone who was threatening for Grand Slam titles, yeah, they all need a little draw help, but like, at some point, you wanna be in the top 16 seats to where like, that is an expectation for you. And now the draw help you need is like, maybe I don't land in Sabalinka's quarter, maybe I land in like,

Torrey Hawkins (01:38:41.999)
For sure.

Torrey Hawkins (01:38:47.269)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (01:38:49.228)
a quarter that's more manageable without naming any names for her. Yeah, like, that's what she, I think that's what she's moved towards. Like, kind of last thing, I saw this random stat and then we can get out here. Naomi Osaka, right, has won how many Grand Slams did Naomi win? Naomi won four, is she at four? Won four slams, right, two U.S. Open, two Joshrain Opens. She's only won three tournaments outside of that. Isn't that wild?

Torrey Hawkins (01:38:50.807)
Right. For her. Sure. I know what mean.

Torrey Hawkins (01:39:06.309)
I think it was four or five. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:39:16.282)
Wow. Wow. I would even go back on that same stat. I would love to see her win loss record before her childhood, before her quote unquote sabbatical. And I'd love to see the win loss record since then, because I would have to tell you that we're still drifting, drifting, drifting is the word, drafting off of her past success. And I'm not so sure if

Alvin Owusu (01:39:19.686)
That's wild.

Torrey Hawkins (01:39:46.501)
current or recent success has been enough there to continue to play the maintenance game that I'm seeing. The fact that she's only won three other tour titles is concerning.

Alvin Owusu (01:39:59.27)
That's wild, right? Like that's, that's when you think about, and we're going to do this at some point, we're going to kind of probably after the US Open, just kind of talk about top ranked players, because I have this thing where like the peak of a top player is used like three years, right? Regardless of when they hit it, but like, it's like Naomi Osaka was not a thing. And then she won, she beat Serena and won the US Open, right? And then

four months later won Australian Open, right? And then won the US Open in 2020 and then came back and won Australian Open in 2021. So like we're talking from US Open 2018 to Australian Open 2021, right? And then she kind of just went away. She went away. Like Ega, Ega, like, that's when Ash Barty, like Ash Barty kind of took it from her, but we're talking about three years. She got four Grand Slams in three years.

Torrey Hawkins (01:40:43.842)
Sure, right.

Alvin Owusu (01:40:57.531)
but like nothing outside of that. Did not win a tournament before that, did not win a tournament after that. It was like 18 to 21, that's it. That is, it's not like it was seven years, it's three years. I didn't want to get into the months, it's not long. Now granted, we lost a lot of 2020, right? But she won the US Open in the empty stadium, US Open, right? And then followed up with the Australians. So it's just.

It all happened so fast. Things change quickly. Like, quite quickly.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:30.891)
And buddy, don't take, keep your head on the swivel. Keep your head on the swivel, Alvin, because buddy, at any given time, you could be knocked off. If somebody taps you on your shoulder, don't look. You know what I mean? Keep your head completely forward.

Alvin Owusu (01:41:34.179)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:41:48.064)
because that's where the action's coming. And I look forward to us wrapping this up again later on. I look forward to how this all plays out with the open. I think this year specifically is going to see about five or six of our pretty solid names that we are gonna end up kind of bidding us adieu. And my wife's favorite wordle word, adieu. And I just see that being a...

Alvin Owusu (01:41:48.309)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:42:18.07)
I see that being the case on women's side as well. And I wouldn't be surprised. I'll be honest. I wouldn't be surprised if Naomi just cashed in the chips and said, you know what? I'm never going to compete for one again. And I've won four. It's not fun for me anymore to be at this point. And I'll, you know, maybe she goes back to running her agency or whatever, her, whatever she is she's doing on the side. And you know, it's, I, I, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I see her.

moving in that direction and I'll be honest I think

I think Stefanos might be right next door on the way out. I feel like there's things not happening there that have not happened. And I don't wanna put anything on it. I was disappointed to see him split with Gorin. I don't think Gorin's harsh and public comments helped, but I also don't think that Stitsipas took it well. If one were to take it such, right? If one were to take it, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:42:55.963)
you

Alvin Owusu (01:43:02.682)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:43:08.443)
I mean, they could have helped. They could have helped. exactly, the way he reacted to it, just kind of like, that's the problem right there. Someone challenged you, someone with whom you respect, and then your response is to go on about building a family and your team, all this nonsense that was not about tennis, and it's like, okay, all right, dude.

Torrey Hawkins (01:43:32.931)
Or not about accountability and what you can do to do some things better. And again, do I ever see him getting back in the top three? I don't. Do I see him back in top 10? To my point, do I see him get back in the top 10? I don't. Do I see his game style and the changes he's made making him a threat at a slam in the second week? I don't. And so that's my point. I feel the same way about Naomi. So, and that's...

Alvin Owusu (01:43:35.971)
Exactly.

Alvin Owusu (01:43:42.427)
3, 10, 20. No, dude.

Torrey Hawkins (01:43:59.235)
I hate saying it and being that much of a realist. It's just what I'm looking at. I don't see some things being done to reinvent who they were. I see some things being done personally or through the team of what they used to do. And what they used to do to me is no longer relevant, at least right now. And Alvin, I said the micrometer, it can be a micrometer away, knowing your pattern, having the speed, and even that changes.

Alvin Owusu (01:44:16.536)
Yeah. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:25.412)
Even that changes as you get a little bit older, as guys start getting used to it, as players start getting a little faster. I saw, and this is what I about to say, I saw Emma attack Naomi's serve more than Naomi attacked hers. And Naomi was used to be known for attackable returns. And I'm like, she's out Naomi-ing Naomi. And I was like, that's what you used to do. And mind you, Naomi's serve used to have a really good serve.

Alvin Owusu (01:44:41.314)
Right, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:44:46.542)
Nailed it. Yeah.

Torrey Hawkins (01:44:54.879)
At least from what I remember playing playing me. She surprised Serena with a bigger serve. She wasn't serving terrible, but she wasn't getting the occasional ace of game. She wasn't getting that occasional service winner and the first strike. The reason she took off, she took Serena out was she had a service good as Serena's and could return. And I see her today and she would very, she looked very, very, very mortal. And to see Emma attack her more. There was some serves where I felt like Emma

serve bigger than Naomi. And five years ago, would have, you know, like, what are you talking about? I mean, that's what I saw. So I say that to say, when I don't see some of those things returning and I don't see that player doubling down on what they do well, it's hard for me to think that they're, they're headed the right direction.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:37.764)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:45:42.522)
Yeah, yep, I'm with you there. I guess we should put a pin in it. We should, yeah. You drop the mic, I'm gonna put the pin in it, because we've been, oh, right, like, oh, damn, that's a long one. Maybe it'll be two, maybe it'll be one, we'll see. We'll see when you listen to this, you will know, you will know. But yeah, I'm Alvin, that's Tory. Tell me, oh, oh, oh.

Torrey Hawkins (01:45:56.694)
Yeah. Yeah.

I'd like to know one thing, one, sorry, In the comments, in the comments, fans, listeners, viewers, give us your top five. You wouldn't be surprised bidding adieu at the end of 2025. Who are the five in 2025? Guys and girls, you can combo it if you want to be a little sheepish. I'm looking for five ladies, five gentlemen.

that are on the Schneib, so to speak. There's my challenge, my question to the listeners, viewers out there. Boom, I said it.

Alvin Owusu (01:46:41.061)
Alright, we'll leave it there. Alright, best of three, we are out.